in Royal Festival Hall - the 1950's

from Southbank Centre Archive:

I was a music student in London (studying piano with Ilona Kabos and at the R.C.M.) in the fifties. So I was lucky enough to be at the opening concert in the F.H. It was an electrifying experience but we all thought the acoustic was too dry. I remember it was a J.S.Bach concert and you could hear a pin drop. The sound engineer had quite a struggle to remedy this lack of harmonic reverberation. We used to sit on the platform on the left of the pianist for half-a-crown! (25p now?) There's a very special place in my heart for F.H. so come on 2007!

cite as

Southbank Centre (ed.), Southbank Centre Archive. In Southbank Centre Archive. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1447754332256 accessed: 29 March, 2024 (Southbank Centre Archive, http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/about-us/history-and-archive/southbank-centre-archive)

location of experience: Royal Festival Hall

Listening to

hide composers
J S Bach

Experience Information

Date/Time the 1950's
Medium live
Listening Environment in the company of others, indoors, in public

Originally submitted by Liz Ford on Tue, 17 Nov 2015 09:58:52 +0000
Approved on Thu, 23 Feb 2017 11:49:26 +0000